Do you ever play the Pokemon games and grow attached to a character only for something to happen be it its out of character for them or they got a bad ending and suddenly that character leaves a bad taste in your mouth? That's what I'm going over in today's update. Today I'm addressing characters across the Pokemon games AND anime who got the short end of stick or 'Done Dirty'.

1. Nemona

Nemona is one of the very first characters you're introduced to within Scarlet & Violet as she's the player's neighbor and rival.
A lot of people love Nemona, I personally don't for the reason Pokemon did her dirty. She was characterized as a possessive overbearing borderline 'yandere' character. Her character arc never improved or attempted to make her grow as a character as she remained the same beginning to end, often being used as the butt of most jokes especially in the endgame. Even in the Post Game, when Nemona, Arven & Penny got an extra quest/storyline to close out their character arc/story, Nemona's endgame storyline only ruined her character further. Nemona's endgame storyline featured Nemona trying to figure out why nobody in the student body wants to battle her. By the end of it, Nemona grows REALLY Narcissistic/full of herself claiming she's 'too good at battling that nobody wants to battle her' and they leave it at that. Even the player character agreed with the student body often showing annoyance whenever Nemona demands a battle between them. Nemona remains the same in this game beginning to end and never not once do they attempt to make her grow. Or well, the attempt to make her grow was there, except it did more harm than good. I just don't understand how people love Nemona when her character LACKS. Admittedly, the Pokemon anime FIXED all of the issues I have with game Nemona. Anime Nemona is much less possessive and acts like a sister/best friend to the main character. Still though, game Nemona was done very wrongly.

2. Geeta

Now labeled as the most disappointing Champion in Pokemon history, Geeta is the champion of Paldea in the Scarlet Violet games and characterized as a powerful woman both in battle and in her line of work as chairman of Paldea. While it is true that she's a powerful woman and literally every NPC hates her due to her 'all business' serious nature, she SUCKS as a trainer. She uses horrible Pokemon that, in most games, early game trainers use such as Gogoat which has been proven to be one of the weakest grass types to date and Espathra while decent, is an early game low level psychic type that cant hold its end in battle aside from its high speed stat. For a Champion, why are you using really weak Pokemon? Furthermore, she wasn't utilizing her Pokemon correctly. For example, she owns a Kingambit, a Pokemon of whom has the ability where it gets stronger with each Pokemon on your team that has fainted. She sends this Pokemon out 2nd each time... It should be sent last logistically.  She also uses a Glimmora that sets up Toxic spikes on the field once defeated BUT sends said Pokemon out last therefore defeating the Pokemon's entire purpose. On top of it, most of her team is weak to fire types!!! Unless Geeta is a secret villain with a stronger team in the upcoming DLCs, Pokemon needs to completely overhaul her team if they wanna save her...

3. Penny

Penny is one of the main antagonists within Scarlet & Violet despite being a 'good guy' the entire game when in reality she was just manipulating the player to do her dirty work the entire game. Well, its actually not quite clear whether shes considered an antagonist if shes the leader of a villain team but utilized the player to help in disband the evil team. I dont know... Everyone had high hopes for Penny as a character considering she was the leader of Team Star but she dropped the ball and now the fanbase straight up doesn't like her as a character due to the disappointment of her fight & placement in the story. Penny was a lackluster fight especially compared to the rest of Team Star or literally any trainer in the rest of the game. She was an Eeveetrainer with an entire team of Eeveelutions, not even using the strongest Eeveelutions statistically, and she didn't even fight decently... Penny also felt very out of place within the friend group of the player, Arven & Nemona as all that Penny did was insult Nemona and fight with Arven. Pokemon could've saved Penny in one three ways. 1: They could've given Penny a team of NOT Eeveelutions. 2: Secretly introduced a new Eeveelution by making it exclusively on Penny's team and it isn't available until after your fight with her. 3: made her personality less 'jackassy'. Everything I've mentioned here are things I've heard a million times over from the fanbase. One thing for sure was that Pokemon dropped the ball hard on Penny.

4. Marnie

Marnie is one of the main rivals within Pokemon Sword & Shield. She was introduced as a distant punk girl, whose brother is a famous musician, with an entourage of highly devoted fans who often take their love for her WAY too far. Besides her design, she became an instant fan favorite due to her sweet nature and devotion to her dream to become the next Galar Champion. However, this devotion of hers is what dragged her down so heavily...
Marnie had dreams and was devoted on becoming the champion of Galar so much so she consistently put down her own brother AND fans because Piers wanted her to take his place as a gymleader,  something she DOES NOT want. When Marnie lost the championship, she suddenly gave up on her dream and became the Dark Gymleader despite how she said she wasn't going to. Marnie literally could've waited till next season to redo the gym challenge and try to become Champion again, but instead she gave up on that dream as a whole. Wtf!? She gave up on this dream the SECOND she lost to the player too. Like yes, it's satisfying that the game closed out Marnie's character arc yet at the same time her ending just goes against her entire character and so many people miss detail that about her.

5. Wallace

Wallace is the 8th Gymleader of the Hoenn region/The Ruby & Sapphire games. He specializes in the Water typing, he's a super model and he's the most involved character amongst all the gymleaders in his respected game. So how was Wallace done dirty? Come Pokemon Emerald, the more 'fleshed out' and superior version of Sapphire & Ruby, Wallace had been promoted to regional Champion of Hoenn therefore replacing Steven Stone: Another fan favorite. Pokemon was wrong to replace Steven and was further wrong to not alter Wallace's team between Gymleader & Champion leaving him as a Water trainer with blaring weaknesses. Pokemon completely missed the opportunity to alter Wallace's team and further could've changed the storyline to make it so Wallace successfully defeated Steven (Cause he 100% can given Steven is a Rock & Steel trainer) & took the title as Champion rather than just completely writing off Steven's character. It would've made Wallace's title more deserving AND we would still have Steven as a character besides a small quest where Steven gives the player a Castform. Wallace was further done wrongly for the sake that in future Pokemon games AND the anime, Wallace isnt recognized as a Champion. It was retconned/made NOT cannon that Wallace ever became a Champion which just boggles my mind and makes me wonder why they ever made him a champion in the first place. Wallace is still a phenomenal character, but they did his character wrongly in general.

6. Lusamine

Lusamine is the main antagonist of the Sun & Moon games. Introduced as a good guy with strong interest in researching aliens/Wormholes and later we learn this devotion went a little too deep from cruelly experimenting on Pokemon, abusing her kids and to wanting to become an Ultra Beast herself. Lusamine is one of Pokemon's most evil and unhinged Villains to date.
Game Lusamine is perfect as she is. Why do I think Pokemon did her wrong? Her anime counterpart... The Pokemon anime re-wrote Lusamine's entire character. Yes, she still studies Ultra Beasts, but it's miles more tame. In fact, Lusamine is no longer unhinged. She's now a phenomenal mother, be it a little overbearing at times. All of the things that made Lusamine a villain were completely taken away thus ruining her character. There is actually a logical explanation behind why all these changes were made for Lusamine's anime counterpart and we have Disney to blame. Disney briefly owned the TV rights for Pokemon between 2014-2020 before being bought out by Netflix and I'm 100% sure Disney wanted to make Lusamine more PG for their child audiences thus explaining the complete character overhaul cause we can all agree, Game Lusamine WOULDNT fly in Disney terms.

7. Leon

A fan favorite and labeled the Undefeated Champion. Leon IS the strongest trainer in Pokemon canon and the company REALLY dropped the ball... it's a constant joke in the fanbase that before Geeta, Leon IS the easiest Champion to defeat out of all the Pokemon games despite being labeled as Undefeated. This is primarily due to how Sword & Shield is one of the easier Pokemon games in recent years given the trainer levels are the lowest ever. Leon's entire team never surpassed level 60 when in games prior, the champions are level 60-80. It's the games difficulty as a whole that did Leon dirty, but you cannot deny Pokemon should've made the games harder and it would've saved Leon. Thankfully, the anime redeemed Leon by giving us the Master's Eight Tournament where the 8 strongest trainers on the planet went head to head in battle in order to crown the next World's Strongest/Pokemon Master. Leon made it to 2nd place being bested by none other than Ash Ketchem who was FINALLY crowned a Master and closed out his story 20+ years in the making.

8. Brock

Brock, depending on whether you play the games or watch the anime, was done REALLY wrongly but not in a bad way per say. It's more from a plot/story standpoint, the anime didn't hold back on making this man miserable. In the games, Brock is a proud rock type gymleader who takes his job seriously. In the anime, Brock became a gym leader by default because his dad was always 'at the store getting milk'. In fact, Brock's parents weren't ever around and therefore was left at home in Pewter city to juggle raising his siblings single handedly AND run an entire gym completely alone. It took EVERYTHING in Brock's power to realize he's living a horrible life he doesn't wanna live before leaving home and having a few adventures of his own. It also took Brock about 20 years before he successfully got a Girlfriend too. Brock is an awesome character and one of my personal favorites, but you can't deny that Pokemon put anime Brock through the wringer.

9. Rei & Akari

Rei and Akari are the player characters of Pokemon Legends Arceus. Rightfully labeled as one of the best Pokemon games ever made, you cannot deny that Rei & Akari deserved better. From eventually being wrongly shunned/banned from Jubilife village near the climax of the game to how in the true ending, Arceus DOESNT send Rei & Akari back to their original timeline. Either its a plot hole or Pokemon intended the player characters to not return home, it low key ruins such an awesome game as Rei & Akari deserve to return home after a long journey & Arceus is a butthole who plays literal god and doesn't do that for them.

10. Grusha

Grusha is the 8th Gymleader who specializes in the Ice typing in the Scarlet & Violet games and it's almost cruel how this man was characterized. From having a womanly complexion to how he HATES his boss, you realize Grusha lives miserably. Why does Grusha hate his boss? Grusha IS a celebrity in the Pokemon universe as an athlete. Grusha WAS a pro snowboarder now retired not by choice. When Champion Geeta recruited the Paldea gymleaders, Grusha was treated especially bad as she forced him to choose between being a gym leader or being an athlete. Grusha chose being a gymleader, but during the Post Game when the player has to rematch against all of the gymleaders, you learn that Grusha heavily regrets not choosing to remain an athlete and therefore hates his job currently as a gym leader. What makes this especially heartbreaking is that EVERY gym leader has a career, some of them with careers that interfere heavily with their duties as a gymleader with Iono who is a Pop Idol, Tulip the supermodel AND beautician & lastly Ryme the musician. Despite all them living their dream careers, Grusha was forced to give up his dreams. Like wtf!?!?!? Everything just feels insanely unfair to Grusha and honestly, it doesn't make sense either. Grusha had been done dirty in all the wrong ways.

Which character do you think deserved better? Any that you think were done the dirtiest?